She learned block printing from the printmaker Arthur Wesley Dow at the Ipswich Summer School of Art in Massachusetts.
In 1903, she became supervisor of art for the entire Los Angeles city school system, a position she held until 1939.
She favored landscapes and genre scenes whose simplified forms, stylized drawing, and subtle colors and textures were influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, Japanese art, and Arthur Wesley Dow's aesthetic.
In 1924, she and Frances had a two-person exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In the late 1920s, Gearhart and her two sisters collaborated on a children's book of original verse illustrated with their linocut prints.